(no subject)

[paft.livejournal.com]

Democratic Underground, 2002 -- In the eyes of many modern conservatives, the battle between Republicans and Democrats is a battle between the Godly and the Satanic. To call this mindset a rejection of civility is to seriously underestimate the danger it poses. It's a rejection not merely of civility, but of the assumptions about tolerance and equal access that drive our political process….

Modern right-wing rhetoric becomes much less irrational if it's seen as the last gasp of the right's pretense of commitment to political freedom. Rather than self-destructing or imploding, it's quite possible that many conservatives are on the verge of moving from the covert to the overt rejection of this ideal. (emphasis added)

The first opinion piece aside from discussion forum OPs that I ever posted to the Internet was an essay carried by the then-brand-new website, Democratic Underground back in 2002. My piece was about American liberals and moderates hopefully opining (and let me emphasize -- this was eleven years ago.) that the right was “imploding.” As I observed back then, “This often takes place after some spectacularly insane statement from the right, like a Bush administration spokesman claiming that toxic sludge is good for the environment or a right-wing pundit suggesting that we invade France… Many liberals mistakenly believe that the right wing has an emotional investment in the logic of its own claims and, as a result, is due any day now to simply die of embarrassment.”

And that, I think, has been the core of the problem – a naïve refusal by many in politics and the media to focus on the serious agenda underlying all that ridiculous right-wing rhetoric. For three decades these extremists have been dismissed as irrelevant by moderate liberals and tolerated as “useful” by moderate conservatives. Now they have amassed enough influence to set into motion their dream of what amounts to a political monopoly. Voter suppression and gerrymandering are there to short-circuit the power of demographically liberal voters, and the very ability of a presidential administration to implement a law it has passed has come under attack. Merely enacting important legislation with which the right disagrees is presented as an outrageous act, even an impeachable offense.

And yes, the fact that our president is an African American does give a boost to this attack on political diversity. One of the oldest tricks in the racist book is portraying acts considered normal when done by a white man as criminal when done by a black man. The Republican Party, always willing to exploit racism, is happy to use that assumption as leverage.

I don’t know where this will end. Salon has a piece up saying the Republicans are just likely to get even more right wing. How much further can the GOP go to the right without openly declaring themselves the party of racism and religious dominionism and embracing violence as a tactic?

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Comments

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

To be clear, dog whistles are dog whistles because of subjective, anecdotal experience, not despite them. That's how they work.

Someone who refused to consider the personal angle of people who listened to a speech, focusing instead exclusively on the surface content, would miss the power—and quite reasonable argument—behind any "nudge, nudge, say no more" references. They might also point to the speaker's past record outside the "nudge, nudge" bits as if to disprove the intent of the speech itself, taking into no account the political strategy the dog whistle might represent . . . even if that strategy proved wildly successful for both the candidate and his party.

Oh. . . . Got it.

Carry on. We're done.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Someone who refused to consider the personal angle of people who listened to a speech, focusing instead exclusively on the surface content, would miss the power—and quite reasonable argument—behind any "nudge, nudge, say no more" references. They might also point to the speaker's past record outside the "nudge, nudge" bits as if to disprove the intent of the speech itself, taking into no account the political strategy the dog whistle might represent . . . even if that strategy proved wildly successful for both the candidate and his party.

What you're doing here is exactly what happens in the OP, you realize. That it stops being about what's actually happening, and instead the racial angle is inserted into everything. It's not that people care about a secure vote, it's that they don't want the poor to vote. It's not that they don't want to see people vote for someone else, it's that they want to actively suppress the minority vote. It's not that the song is critiquing an unrelatable, unrealistic culture of wealth, it's an attack on African-American cultural identities.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[paft.livejournal.com]

bdj: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

And frequently, it's not.

As I've observed, you must be awfully confused by old gangster movies where a thug walks into a business, looks around, and says, "Nice place here. Be a shame if it were to burn down."

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Not really, because that sort of situation has context. And history. And basic observation. Not a feeling, not an agenda.

It's like watching a gangster movie, hearing "be a shame if it were to burn down," and assuming that the guy learned about a CIA asset.

[paft.livejournal.com]

bdj: ecause that sort of situation has context. And history. And basic observation..

All things you flatly reject when they are pointed out.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, I believe I'm taking them into consideration greatly, as opposed to trying to shoehorn an agenda.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

And sometimes it's a big, fat, Freudian dick.

Perhaps that is what's happening here. A dog whistle is, after all, an appropriate metaphor because only those in certain circumstances can "hear" the message, in this case the folks of the Deep South for whom (again) the Jim Crow laws are a social norm that should have been continued, but weren't because of yet more interference from those Northerners. Northerners (like yourself) have not been steeped in this cultural history; you therefore don't hear the whistle. As I explained, that whistle was explained to me by a friend with southern family; I didn't get it before that explanation, either.

I think I'll take the word of someone with ties to the South over another Northerner like yourself. Nothing personal. You just don't have the right "ears." I might try to confirm/debunk my suspicions with another Southerner later (could be much later, as our work schedules no longer mesh), one who also happens to hail from a rabidly racist family and who is, himself, quite admittedly racist (though, as he also admitted, "mellowing with age").